Dress Of The Day with Angela

 In the days of my grandmother, my paternal grandmother who was a seamstress, you would sew buttonholes by hand. How? How to make a Buttonhole by Hand You start by drawing a line in pencil or with tailor's chalk. What is tailor's chalk?  Tailor's Chalk A tailor's chalk looks solid, like coloured pencil lead. It doesn't crumble like blackboard chalk. The tailor's chalk is a contrasting colour, but washes out easily. Another name for tailor's chalk is French chalk. From Wikipedia. An alternative in a washable felt tip pen. Check it really washes out on another scrap of fabric or the back inside hem  or half way up an inside side hem, anywhere which won't show. Stitches To stop the button hole from fraying, you sew several parallel lines of one long stitch across both ends of the slit. These lines must be close together. That conceals the end and prevents the fabric pulling apart each time you use the buttonhole to fasten or unfasten the button.  Then you s...

  My grandmother, who was a milliner (hat maker), wearing a large hat.  What My Ancestors Taught Me About Sewing My mother, Netta, taught me to sew on buttons and darn socks and save buttons. She taught me to consider sewing a home craft, not a well-paid career., but a necessity.  My mother and mother-in-law, Pearl, lived through World War II when clothes were rationed. Wedding dresses were made out of parachute silk. My mother's wedding outfit when she married my father was a sensible dark skirt suit which could be worn again afterwards.  Why not a white wedding dress? It was her second marriage, in the 1940s. Her first husband had been missing, presumed dead, in a plane over El Alamein, a year before the battle which was won by the British and Allies and a turning point, leading to the end of the long-drawn out war.  White was not very practical for a wartime bride in London. In the middle of my mother's wedding reception, an air raid siren went off. Everybody...